At the core of teaching is an unexplainable sense of excitement with every new unexplored idea. That feeling is a prime motivation for my desire to become an educator; the evolving sense of mutual learning between educators and students is an incredibly wholesome dynamic which not only expands your own knowledge, but your audience's. I seek to reverse the traditional educational standards which myself and previous generations have encountered - overemphasis on testing, immense pressure to succeed, fear of failure, and more. This would include having a sympathetic understanding of all students' learning styles,  facilitating a hortatory environment where each individual feels as if they are an asset. Moreover, envisioning myself in the same position they are currently in as students, as I once was within the secondary level of education too. This means presenting information in a manner that encourages new forms of thinking and a healthy form of productive struggle; an educator must cater to the skill level of a particular audience, and promote a healthy environment where students aren't penalized for misunderstanding. [1]

Based on my experience in PBI as well as Classroom Interactions, I strongly desire students to yearn for their experiences in the classroom by embedding a plethora of hands-on projects, lessons, and activities that foster creativity. Allowing students to generate artifacts gives educators the opportunity to reflect on their teaching methodologies and adapt accordingly to their audience. I am enthusiastic toward nourishing not only student's wisdom but also their self-efficacy so that they can be prepared for their lives as future adults: socializing and collaborating with peers, healthily dealing with mistakes, realizing their full potential, overcoming imposter syndrome, and more. I seek to make the classroom a safe space for them to develop these attributes. I've learned more about becoming flexible, adaptive, and attentive toward students' needs, and constantly reflecting on forms of improvement toward their education.

Overall, I wish to ensure that students can master an interconnected foundation of STEM concepts and translate them into new applications that don’t necessarily have correct answers; in other words, I desire to prepare students to be adaptive to an ever-changing technological field even in the face of failure. By crafting a constructivist environment where participation is encouraged, students collaborate in teams, projects and demos are frequent, and a mutual relationship exists between educator/student, participants will hopefully nourish a framework of computational knowledge whilst simultaneously establishing their own sense of meaning. I want students to gradually explore how they want to translate their groundwork of skills into a career aligning with their passions. I find myself asking this question: how is what I am teaching today going to be of value to my students in a future situation non-identical to now?

References:
[1] Townsend, C., Slavit, D., & McDuffie, A. R. (2018). Supporting all learners in productive struggle. Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School